Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa

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Quote from source:
We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres* -- the size of 20 soccer fields.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 1,500 foot rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tons of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 2,500 acres of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2-billion acquiring and developing 1.25 million acres of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

Unbelievable.

This is shocking and I am surprised there has not been more about it.

To grow this much food in a country where hunger is such an issue is crazy. Millions of acres of land?! Wow!

And this is the most fertile land we have left.

Amazing. I can't say anything else...

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Yeah, I have a thought...

A few years back I was listening to NPR and there was a report about how the Warren Buffett had made a contribution of nearly 70% of his worth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. He gave away another 15% to someone else.

At this time, Buffet was the wealthiest man in the world. He GAVE AWAY 70% of his worth to the 2nd most wealthy person in the world.

Interestingly, a little over a year later, Warren Buffet again surpassed Bill Gates as the wealthiest man in the world.

(As a side note, I read today that a businessman in Mexico has become the wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of $58 billion.)

Anyway, at that time, I was theorizing that most of the markets for the most prolific salable goods were saturated, and unless new markets were exploited, capitalism would begin to dwindle and collapse.

There are some more markets in the world to exploit, but the easiest one should be the continent of Africa. China and India are exploitable markets, but they are already under control by established governments. All that was needed really were people living in Africa that actually drew paychecks in order to buy something. This is an opportunity to create, or 'buy' a new market in which to sell computers (and OS's), cars, homes, plasmas, cell phones (and contracts), what have you.

I saw Buffet's 'donation' to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation pretty much as a land grab attempt. I mean, I think they were trying to 'buy' much of the AFRICAN CONTINENT with the intention of supplying the education and infrastructure necessary to foster an environment of consumerism.

We'll see.

[edit on 10-3-2010 by DeltaChaos]

Africa is the next nation to be exploited for cheap labor and its resources.

2nd line.

No way would I lease this land to anyone without mandating a cut of the food produced for the country it was using.

How awful if none of this food is going to Ethiopia. Anyway, maybe Ethiopia needs to get off their hind ends (the leaders) and become heros by building their own greenhouses and employing their own men for the work.

Lets do this everywhere for everyone.

While it geopolitically might make sense, from an ideological and cultural point of view it's complete failure. To revoke the colonial past and turn Africa yet again into a slave continent, will not only be detrimental to its inhabitants, who scream for independence, but it will disarm the land of its resources and further contribute to a world ecological catastrophe waiting ahead. The West made a mistake three centuries ago that they are now repeating in order to grow into an even more disorganized world super power. This is the last thing Africa needs right now.

Originally posted by wdkirk
Africa is the next nation to be exploited for cheap labor and its resources.

Kind of, but opposite.

How many more cell phones and contracts can we sell to ourselves? I only have one, but my GF has two for some reason. And we're at the point now that in order to sell more cell phones, a new, better cell phone has to come out every six months in order to keep the cycle going.

How many Motorola StarTacs do you think are sitting in a warehouse somewhere just waiting for someone to use them? Probably millions. Inventory needs to be reduced, and there needs to be someone to buy in order to reduce it.

That, my friend, is what Africa's purpose will be to capitalist Earth.

[edit on 10-3-2010 by DeltaChaos]

It's good thing we are buying up land in Africa....seeings how there are so many terrorists over yonder...


www.abovetopsecret.com...

In the movie the Obama deception (please don't start a debate over Alex jones, not my intention) I remember someone saying the bankers needed a black man to be their front while they robbed the american people and then Africa. The bailouts followed by land grabs and the recent "al-cia-duh" rise in Africa reported by the MSM all seem to confirm that statement. Its time for the empire to expand and re-exploit one of the last truly undeveloped areas on earth available to them. Soon all of the resources on earth won't be enough to continue the infinite growth necessary to keep the system propped up.

Not only do we continue to exploit Africa after centuries of colonialism, and completely destabilize that part of the world by taking away its political and economical autonomy, but we also continue to industrialize unused land and force the farmers to work under a corporate scheme. Obviously it's a highly profitable idea (ask China), but what will the global impact be? Who cares; we're modern--we put a price tag on everything we see and then rape it to keep people satisfied. Another revolution is kept at bay. This is the modern world in a nut shell.

Originally posted by time91
Soon all of the resources on earth won't be enough to continue the infinite growth necessary to keep the system propped up.

This is absolutely true. Current economic models dictate that growth is always necessary. A flat line is the same as a decline.

How can a system that relies on a finite resource pool expect to continue when growth is constantly required?

Originally posted by predator0187
www.alternet.org...

Quote from source:
We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres* -- the size of 20 soccer fields.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 1,500 foot rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tons of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

These dirt cheap products are going to starve out farmers in other countries which used to have some decent agriculture and a sizable number of farmers. I suspect some farmers in the EU are going to be very very very unhappy the coming years.
THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS A MESS. It is going to be the death of us all.
Can we at least trade food with African immigrants, since we are going to be without money soon? I mean we give them immigrants from Africa since they can't find jobs here anyway and they give us food? No? I guess it doesn't work this way eh?

So, let me get this straight..they been exporting BOTH cheap labor and now dirt cheap commodities BUT they are not getting any money back as a country/continent because commodities production is owned by foreigners, plus their people that have been send abroad must first pay their debts to the slave trader, in order to start making some money of their own to send back to their family in Africa.
What a mess.

[edit on 10-3-2010 by spacebot]

I agree with all of you. This is absolutely disgraceful that we can do this.

It is amazing that our government and big corporations can get away with basically stealing. What good is justice if it doesn't work?

Pred...

Gold, Copper, Silver, Platinum, diamonds, Oil, Coal, Natural Gas....

I can think of lots of natural resources that other countries would want to take from Africa. I'm not talking about mass producing Motorola crap or any kind of electronics or other crap you buy from Wal-mart. I am talking about true valuable resources. Anyone want to venture a guess on what kind and how much of any valuable resource may be ready to be "discovered" in Africa?

And a work force that will work for cheap so they too can have a piece of the world economic pie.

and that Billionaire is also behind ISIS in addition of taking away food supplies from hungriest countries

a reply to: wdkirk

The next China/India. That is why the US used tax payers money to build its infastructure . IBM, MS, Oracle and Others Are spendig good amount of money to train computer programmers at cheap rates. Big Corp America is droolng at the future market.

originally posted by: wdkirk
Africa is the next nation to be exploited for cheap labor and its resources.

2nd line.

I thought it was a continent...

Considering that Sub-Saharan Africa is pretty much a POS, I think a little investing may help. Perhaps the various governments will become a bit more stabilized, adopt certain technologies and be able to actually feed their people.

If we leave Africa alone, nothing is going to change there. It hasn't for A LONG TIME.

I find it very sad that to affect change it's going to require compensation, but that seems to be the way of the world. I don't see any of these countries getting their S together without some outside influence.

So for the record, I'm displeased it takes exploitation to see change, but it's better than letting those nations rot and fester.